Design in the near future
- Started
- Last post
- 25 Responses
- CyBrainX
I think the upcoming years are going to be horrible for designers.
First, there's the lack of Flash and slow adoption of harder to implement html5/css etc.
Then, the mobile industry is great for consumers who want convenience wherever they go but horrible for content creators who care about design, animation, typography and even basic graphics, considering the size of screens.
I know cynical developers will just say I'm a whiny designer who should learn some javascript, css and god knows what else, but the fact is technology is supposed to enable us, not limit us.
Already, many of us are being told not to use Flash in many instances that used to implemented in Flash without a second thought. How are your developers coping? Are they even using @fontface or some equivalent? If you wanted a richer experience like an animated transition or basic animation here and there, are you able to do it?
Do you feel like your end results have any more quality than web sites from the 90s?
I'm not trying to start another Flash debate, which I know is inevitable but more of a question of how you're dealing with it. Tell me some happy stories.
- utopian0
Unfortunately creative, interesting, and or innovative design is just about dead. The interwebs is busy making room for more templates, themes, and blogs.
R.I.P. Design
- Boz0
Well you can see the future over the next few years.. everyone will be making scrolling sites with paralaxing effect we've used in Flash like 5-10 years ago.. Since this is the hottest thing since sliced bread you have every single one developer now using that as some kind of hot shit.
On top of that, the whole argument about preloaders and Flash is now being proven is happening all over Jquery/HTML5/CSS3 based sites.. you can see more and more preloaders.. only this time most of the sites like this run like shit on mobile devices (even worse than Flash) and you need to spend 4 times the time to make sure you are using all kinds of frameworks and patches so they have some kind of fallback for all browsers..
Not to mention there's absolutley no way to do real cool 3D stuff you can od in Flash but to try to use some patched up JS 3d framework that looks like crap or use WebGL which A) still doesn't have hardwar accelerated canvas 3D implementation B) is not even officially a part of HTML5 so implementation across browsers will vary significantly C) looks like shit and no anti-aliasing or anything of sorts and D) writing code for it is like somebody probing your anal hole.
But all this is happening for several reasons I believe.. The oversimplification of the web and apps by Apple who has incredibly powerful PR/marketing machinery and fanbase who is just like a horde of zombies repeating what Steve Jobs wants. The notion that every site should just be like a news site with Wordpress type structure (aka that's why HTML5 introduces tags just for that) and someone smart today, I read, said "Web 3.0 will be about data"..
So, when you patch all of these things together.. you realize that the reason why these things are getting somewhat traction is because it's a world where developers who have been coding some monkey JS, back-end and similar now don't have to deal with designers and can just use templated system to finish their jobs easier and not give a fuck.. They are by force a completely un-creative people.. they don't understand brand and for most, coding in notepad is totally acceptable and pinnacle of the design is a JQuery slider.
- "even worse than Flash"
Considering Flash doesn't run at allanimatedgif
- "even worse than Flash"
- studderine0
Everything has its limitations. If you think innovative design is dead due to the web, then you aren't doing it right.
- mikotondria30
I agree it's a sea-change to a more uniform mass of templated undesign with a mild tide of stylistic change replacing genuine innovation of the interface and directing the mode of interaction, but I'm the sort of person that thinks such a change to a flatter world will just force a new direction, new ways to think about experiences by artful design. How Flash changed the world of tables gifs and Times New Roman, so the same wind of change will take up with some other meeting of technology and aesthetics.
- The more the same everyone else is, the easier it is to be different, and sell that to innovative clients.mikotondria3
- CyBrainX0
That's another thing. The client buys a shiny new iPad, can't see parts of the huge corporate site the agency has been running for a few years with hundreds of pages, and wants it all to work. The agency bends over, migrates a ton of shit to html and then the client says what happened to all the pretty animations, demos, 3D, etc.
I don't think the full damage has been done yet. seems like we're just about at the tipping point.
- what sort of fucking moron adds loads of flash to a corporate site?animatedgif
- bad designer not a bad clientanimatedgif
- hello $$$$ and your sold. lol.akrok
- The site I'm thinking of is this. garnierusa.com. I guess consumer site would have been a better description.CyBrainX
- GeorgesII0
The future of design is Facebook and twitter
the rest is non important for the plebes
my 2ct
- bananaman0
Flash has nothing to do with innovation and creativity. Along with many other web technologies, it's just a presentation tool.
Compared with 5 or 10 years ago, user experience a lot better. It's because we now have a lot more experience and have learnt not to design overblown, heavy navigation concepts but to design products that are unobtrusive, communicate simply and well.
With digital technologies so young and evolving we're living an a really exciting time, so embrace it, because otherwise you sound like old folks muttering about the good old days. We'll can do that in about twenty years.
- +1vaxorcist
- You're only blaming bad Flash designers who will abuse other tools just as quickly. Besides, you sound like you're talking about PowerPoint.CyBrainX
- sound like you're talking about PowerPoint.CyBrainX
- +1 to bananaanimatedgif
- bananaman FTW!abettertomorrow
- Very naive. You'll be proven wrong in about three minutes.CyBrainX
- Morning_star0
I was illustrating this manuscript yesterday, you know the kinda thing; Religious iconography, top dollar vellum, awesome ink work, heraldic creatures etc and i find out from one of the other scribes that there's this new upstart son-of-a-bitch on the scene called Johannes Gutenberg claiming he can make multiple copies of manuscripts in an instant. This is the end of design and i'm fucked.
- LOL +1Continuity
- Hear, hear. I second the +1 and the LOL.nb
- haha heraldic creaturesabettertomorrow
- I do like the religious flash we've seen recently, something named Cathedral?vaxorcist
- Clever but the difference is that Gutenberg's press was a creative improvement, not limiting detriment.CyBrainX
- That's debatable. The immediate colour/quality limits of the press vs hand crafted illumination? there's no competition. The press is/was mass media. Have you ever seen the book of Kells?Morning_star
- ...there's no competition. Have you ever seen the book of Kells?Morning_star
- dskz0
a 5 year old will have better design tools than you can even dream of.
- animatedgif0
ITT 2Advanced refugees
- Continuity0
I wouldn't worry so much about design itself; it's the constant devaluation of the industry in the last few years that's got me more worried. Between crowd-sourcing, recessions and cunts like the UK government promoting 99designs, it's not looking good for the business at all.
- pinkfloyd0
I just don't like the fact that a developer has to write 50 lines of code where in flash, you can just use a tween. Sounds a bit antidesigner friendly to me.
- To each his/her own...ideaist
- Basically I wish flash works on the ipadpinkfloyd
- basically flash is a great tool for non-delevopers to actually get things working.jabblon
- work with better developersanimatedgif
- but flash stuff can be sooo hard to hand off to somebody else to finish.. chaos inside!vaxorcist
- Work with better designers.CyBrainX
- nb0
There will always be young people entering the field. Smart schools will be teaching future technologies to design students, rather than flash.
Imagine an 18-year-old kid entering design school to learn Flash. It's not going to happen as much, because smart instructors will be advising them that it's a big risk learning Flash. Yes, Flash will probably be around in 3 years, but maybe it won't. Do you want to risk your ability to get a job on that chance? Instead, kids will be learning the new technologies, as that seems to be the way the web is going.
As for 99designs and crowdsourcing: they aren't going anywhere. If you can't do a better job than crowdsourcing then you won't make any money. More importantly: if you (or your sales team) can't convince potential clients that your work is better, and also WORTH THE EXPENSE, then you won't have a job.
As for diy WP templates, this will simply shift some of the jobs from "designer" to "developer" as people won't be able to fix the problems that come along when their WP gets hacked, etc.
- I think you overrate how fast schools react to current trends.CyBrainX
- CyBrainX0
"this will simply shift some of the jobs from "designer" to "developer"
Exactly what I'm talking about.
- vaxorcist0
"learning flash" is obsolete, but "learning how to think in object-oriented ways" will not be....Flash memorizers are fucked, AS3 programmers who really get object oriented thinking can pickup other technologies in a week or less often....
- Exactlyabettertomorrow
- But you're talking about developers. In so many situations, it's much more about motion graphics and design.CyBrainX
- akrok0
and...
if you thought the pay wasn't good before i think it's even worser now. and great design = great pay. don't apply. that's just a saying that keeps our hopes up.i don't know how it's on the developer side. but as client keep squeezing the budget. you can't pay the developer good either. same thing goes with the printer. (those few who's left).
- nocomply0
Only read the first post, but honestly as a front-end web developer who sucks at flash I'm finding this a great time of expanding possibilities and I actually think design is improving... at least in terms of clean, accessible and bulletproof layouts with an intuitive UI.
My complaints with Flash were numerous, but one of the major ones was that Flash-based sites were always difficult to use/navigate. I understand that perhaps that's part of the creativity of the site or part of the user-experience, but personally I prefer when websites follow more standard conventions so that there is no learning curve involved with using/navigating the site.
Don't get me wrong I think Flash is great for specific uses but I am very happy to see it going away as an entire web-development tool.